I know that the music is the sound of his home, his past, the thing that probably keeps his mind working. And he listens to traditional Chinese songs – nothing modern. He always holds a phone playing loud music up to his ear. He stumbles ahead, oblivious of other people, and she follows him. He has a different soundtrack to his life, as beautiful, if not more so, than mine.Īnd that woman who often takes her father (I think?) for a walk around here: he is very old and does not move well. I tend to forget that: that man whom I see on the bus, making no eye-contact, hunched into his clothes that is not suited to the winters here, reading an Arabic newspaper, has a different type of music playing into his earphones. Of course, what they bring, apart from their work and their determination to make a life, is their art and their culture. I sometimes look at them and wonder what they bring to this new world. ![]() Around me live Ukrainians, Russians, Syrians, Chinese, Koreans, Libyans, Iranians – people from all over the world who are now Canadian or becoming Canadian. Here in British Columbia, Canada, just about everyone I know either is an immigrant, or is descended from immigrants. The oud that he plays is the Syrian Oud, and his brother is still in Syria, while his parents have fled to Turkey. ![]() Omar cannot play the oud, his oud, the beautiful instrument that he inherited from his grandfather, a master musician, until he feels at peace and has found his place in the new country. Yes, that is a rooster in the kitchen with Farhad. Every call that he makes to his family from a call box simply makes it worse – he is in Scotland, he is safe, but he feels dead inside, and his parents keep reminding how that he should be playing. In his old, tatty clothes, he lugs the oud around like he carries the weight of his past and his grief. Omar has a silent burden – literally silent: everywhere he goes he carries the beautiful oud in its bulky case. Everyone in the film has a story, everyone fled from somewhere, and everyone has hopes and dreams, no matter how ludicrous. Omar, with his sad eyes, his dreams about the last time he performed on stage, and his music-less existence, is no less damaged than someone who has survived a natural disaster or a war. The story is often funny, and the refugees as well as the Scottish people who provide them with services (like the acculturation workshops) are sometimes outlandishly strange. Screenshot from Limbo – “Farhad” left and “Omar”, right (Source: Mubi) The actors in this film are all excellent, by the way. ![]() Omar makes friends with another refugee, “Farhad”, who is desperately cheerful and who just wants to wear a tie and have an office job, played against type as a shabby, shy loner by the very handsome Vikash Bhai. Omar is a young Syrian musician burdened by the weight of his grandfather’s oud ( Arabic: عود, romanized: ʿūd, pronounced ), which he has carried all the way from his homeland. Among them is “Omar”, played with exquisitely delicate feeling by Amir El-Masry. The film is about a village on fictional remote Scottish island – it could be a small town, anywhere – where a group of newly arrived refugees wait for the results of their asylum claims. I would not have watched Limbo, except that the description of the film had the word “oud” in it, and ouds fascinate me. But it has also had a couple of masterpieces that I would never have discovered had it not been on the channel. It’s one of those gems that I discovered on Mubi, which has its fair share of unwatchable weird stuff. ![]() Limbo (2020) is an award-winning film that recently played on Mubi.
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